by Memoona Zahid | Mar 16, 2021 | Reviews
Jonathan Davidson’s A Commonplace is an act of poetic generosity. Fully in the spirit of his entertaining and engaging essay-memoir On Poetry (also from Smith/Doorstop in 2018), the author seeks to remind us of...
by Helen Ivory | Mar 1, 2021 | Reviews
Xavier Panades i Blas, a Catalan-born poet now living in Wales, is passionate about two things: The first is his Catalan language and culture. The second is his writing, which comes from deep within the heart. His live poetry performances are vivid,...
by Helen Ivory | Jan 31, 2021 | Reviews
Carole Bromley’s fourth collection contains poignant and reflective poems that demonstrate her skills of close observation, humour and pathos. She is also admirable in her bravery and lack of self-pity. In Meditation on Death, the last poem...
by Helen Ivory | Nov 15, 2020 | Featured, Poetry, Reviews
A joint collection from two widely published poets opens with, ‘Crescent Moon Over Cookworthy Forest’ which introduces their personal love story – hidden for most of their lives – like the forest and the flora and fauna that inhabits the woodland. The...
by Helen Ivory | Oct 20, 2020 | Featured, Poetry, Reviews
Ernest Hemingway once said “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed”. This quote comes to mind when reading I Ursula which comes across like it was written with a fluid and clear idea of what Ruth...
by Helen Ivory | Aug 31, 2020 | Featured, Poetry, Reviews
I confess to having a personal interest in the art and the life of Stanley Spencer that is entirely fanciful, born of the fact that he and my grandmother, Hilda, both worked in war hospitals in Bristol during the first world war. ‘They could have met,’ I...
